As 2019 starts, I have seen a number of people post or say something like – “new year and fresh start”. Ideally they are correct BUT realistically little to nothing will change (even with a fresh start) if we all continue to think, feel, and act the same way we did as 2018 concluded. Flipping a calendar page won’t do it – proactively changing behaviors will.

Change is hard. We naturally resist it. We think it’s great for others, but we are okay just the way we are. But, without change there can be no improvement. Without action, energy, discipline, and continued focus the goals and objectives we set for this new year will become even more challenging.  
Here are three key areas where active not passive commitment and effort could make a HUGE difference in 2019:

1. Organizational values. A major challenge with values is few, if any, employees or leaders would debate them. No one would say that integrity isn’t important or customer focus isn’t critical in business. But, here’s the catch – everyone would say their behaviors consistently support the organization’s values but they see others who do not. This is especially true in challenging and/or difficult situations. So why not proactively: 

• Take the guess work out – clarify the most critical values-based behaviors needed to ‘walk the talk’ in 2019. 
  
• Use simple, practical measurement tools and techniques to gage and address behaviors that are perceived to be both in and out of sync with your values. Add credibility by pro-actively addressing perceived out-of-sync behaviors. 
• Ensure there are consistent consequences – both positive and negative – for values. When values are actively lived they must be recognized and rewarded. If they are skipped, avoided, and/or only pulled out when convenient, then they must be proactively addressed and corrected. There can’t be double-standards and inconsistencies.  It simply erodes trust.
• Simulate desired values-based behaviors. We are always better prepared when we practice. Initiate ‘Value Scenarios of the Month’ for all employees and ‘Values Case Studies’ in all leadership development activities.  
  

2. Supervisor/employee relationship. It’s been said, ‘rules without relationships equals resistance.’ The only relationship that may be more important in a business than the company-customer relationship is the manager-employee relationship. Exit-interview research shows the No.1 reason people leave their jobs is their managers. And, research also indicates ‘as much as 35% of the variability in discretionary performance of employees is a result of managerial styles and behaviors.’
Author Maya Angelou once said, “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” So, this year how can we make employees feel more:

• Important?
• Genuinely cared for?
• Appreciated?

One of the most powerful ways to build a relationship or tear it down is time. Time always seems in short supply – some are controlled by it – others fight against it. And, time has been described as “the cruelest teacher, because first she gives the test, then teaches the lesson.” Build stronger, genuine relationships this year through improved quality time with employees. 
 
3. Individual Accountability. Mistakes happen. Assumptions and oversights occur. Sometimes people lose focus and are careless. People (employees and leaders) are not perfect. BUT, that doesn’t mean that there can’t be accountability!   

If there is ‘perceived’ blaming, shaming, lecturing, punishing, threatening, and/or humiliating then accountability will be avoided. If failure is considered fatal for individual performance and or career advancement, then risk taking and innovation will suffer. If accountability is only talked about when something goes wrong, people will naturally associate it with something negative.
So consider focusing on the following three accountability actions this year:

• Gain true consensus on what specifically employees are AND are not accountable for.
• Watch for and proactivity address people who are avoiding accountability.
• Embrace a new definition of accountability – it’s a personal choice to proactively influence, take ownership, and deliver desired results.
  

Take a proactive approach to Values, Relationships, and Accountability this year, instead of waiting or seeing if anything happens. Avoid reacting and responding – instead initiate! It could be just the catalyst for change and all those critical improvements needed in 2019.    

According to the U.S. National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), last year we threw away over 200 million pounds of turkey meat after Thanksgiving. That equates to over 6 million turkeys or more than $290M in the U.S. And, that doesn’t factor in the wasted resources (time, labor, food, water, etc.) to raise these birds. Unbelievable!

Eliminating waste (non-value) in organizations has also been and will continue to be a relentless journey. One significant mindset, practice, and framework to conserve resources and eliminate waste was the Toyota Production System (TPS). It became the precursor to Lean efforts today. In TPS, seven ‘wastes’ were originally identified. But an eighth waste – human capability (non-utilized talent, skills, and knowledge) was added when the western world adopted TPS.

Unfortunately, too often this 8th waste (human capability) gets the least amount of time and attention when implementing and sustaining most, critical continuous improvement strategies. There’s great technical alignment and execution but average to poor adoption of culture change. The result is non-sustainable results, frustration, and sometimes more waste.
 
Take a moment and reflect on the following equation:

   Current Employees’ Capabilities minus Capabilities Actually Used = Waste of Human Capability Potential

What impact would tackling human capability ‘waste’ have on your business’ customer value, quality, velocity, and cost? What ‘potential’ is untapped?

Below you will find my Waste of Human Capability Potential Assessment that is used with clients. Simply rate each question using the following scale where 1 = Little Waste; 2 = Some Waste; and 3 = Too Much Waste. Remember there is some ‘waste’ of human capability in ALL organizations.

Currently our organization’s ability to [fill in with each phrase below] creates this level of ‘waste’?  It doesn’t allow us to maximize the full potential of employees’ talents, skills, and knowledge.  

1. Communicate information then ensure its’ understanding  ___
2. Ask employees, “What do you think?” ___
3. Respect and value others (opinions, experiences, backgrounds) ___
4. Surface and respond to employees’ work related issues ___
5. Handle internal conflicts in a healthy manner ___
6. Collaborate - put diverse individuals/groups together to find new solutions to old problems ___
7. Place employees where their skills and knowledge are best utilized ___
8. Provide necessary resources (tools, technology, training, time) to ALL employees ___
9. Involve employees doing the job in daily decision-making processes ___
10. Empower employees to think and act like owners not renters ___
11. Encourage employees to learn from each other ___
12. Reinforce desired behaviors by both recognition and rewards ___
13. Proactively address both performance and behavior issues ___
14. Develop others (skills for current and future jobs) ___
15. Draw valuable lessons from past mistakes and errors ___
16. Capture best practices and lessons learned from people retiring or leaving ___

If you scored your organization a total of 16 points on the above assessment then congratulations, your organization is set up to maximize its’ workforce’s human capability potential.  If your total score was higher than 16 points then there is potential waste of employees’ heads (creative ideas and problem-solving), hearts (commitment), hands (physical work), and habits.

Let’s talk turkey (frank, straightforward, and seriously) – How much human capability ‘waste’ (untapped potential) would be uncovered in your organization if every employee honestly answered - “Are we maximizing your potential contributions to the organization? Why or why not?”     

Think back to previous Halloween evenings. Your neighborhood is filled with princesses, witches, ghosts, and superheroes going door-to-door collecting ‘treats’. Very quickly there’s information ‘on the street’ that there are full-sized candy bars at the Smiths’ house; homemade cookies at the Andersons’ house; oranges at the Holmes’ home; and pencils at the Jones’. Many kids start prioritizing which houses they will go to depending on the ‘treat’ they will or will not get. All the homes had good intentions, but some fell way short of meeting the trick-or-treaters’ expectations. The same holds true for many organization’s recognition efforts. 
        
Here’s a short, Halloween-themed assessment on real life recognition efforts I have seen in my nearly 20 years of consulting. For each scenario, determine if it was a ‘trick or treat’ specifically in regard to effective recognition practices:

1. Water popsicles were given out during shift to show appreciation for all the extra effort despite unusually high temperatures and humidity in the shop. BUT, the first day a number of employees passed. The second day EVERYONE participated because both sugar and sugar-free popsicles were made available.
Trick or Treat? 

Remember - in effective recognition, one size does not fit all.

2. Employees were thrilled with the special, free barbeque lunch served by management. There were lots of favorable comments after about the pork, sauce selections, baked beans, coleslaw, and cornbread BUT employees struggled to answer a basic question – Why are we celebrating?

Trick or Treat?

Remember – be specific as to what you are recognizing otherwise it may not be repeated.

3. A supervisor gave each project team member a colorful recognition certificate for completing the special project on time and under budget. One of the eight team members looked disappointed. The supervisor found out that he/she misspelled the employee’s names on their certificate.

Trick or Treat? 

Remember - little things mean a lot in showing appreciation!

4. A supervisor purchased ‘blank’ thank you cards and wrote personalized notes to each employee when they wanted to reinforce a specific employee behavior or result.

Trick or Treat? 

Remember – most people value personalized recognition and appreciation significantly more than generic thanks.

5. Customer feedback on an exception service recovery effort was received. The supervisor delayed communicating the feedback and recognizing the employee for two weeks – until their next scheduled staff meeting.

Trick or Treat? 

Remember – timeliness increases the perceived value of recognition.

Effective recognition is one of the key processes organizations can use to strengthen, reinforce, or increase the probability of a specific action, behavior, or result occurring. Recognition shows appreciation and thanks through non-financial means – unlike rewards which are financially based. When employees feel they have made sacrifices, put in extra effort, solved problems, and delivered results but nobody says anything, it can be perceived that ‘it just doesn’t matter.’  And, when employees feel it doesn’t matter, many will stop doing it or doing it consistently well.   

Would more effective recognition lift the ‘spirits’ in your organization?  

Everyone has expectations, it’s human nature.  Expectations can vary from high to low, met to unmet, spoken to unspoken, and reasonable to unreasonable. When expectations are met in life and at work, we experience a level of satisfaction and contentment.  When they are unmet, our emotions can quickly shift to surprise, disappointment, anger, blame, and even fear the expectations will continue to be unmet.  

Employees have expectations of their leaders.  So does the business.  But, there’s a danger when we expect something from leaders and automatically assume it will be fulfilled.  It can lead to performance stagnation or decline, anxiety, disengagement, and even higher turnover.  Are expectations of leaders in your organization -- reasonable or unreasonable?  What are you actively doing to manage these expectations?

Expectations have a powerful impact on trust and respect.  And, trust impacts performance.  For example, in PwC’s 2016 global CEO survey, ‘55% of CEOs thought that a lack of trust was a threat to their organization’s growth.’  Ken Blanchard Companies’ research found that ‘45% of employees said lack of trust in leadership was the biggest issue in work performance.’

Some of you might be thinking ‘but we already have values, leadership competencies, and job descriptions.  Isn’t that enough?’  Maybe – maybe not.

Expectations are simply beliefs that a certain outcome or event will happen (we apply assumptions). But, expectations are not agreement.  That only takes place with consistent execution of an aligned set of repeatable processes that communicate, teach, and reinforce desired outcomes and behaviors.    
Is your current process for managing leadership expectation effective and efficient in:

• Providing straightforwardness and transparency to both leaders and employees?
• Driving more consistent use of standard methods & techniques?
• Providing specifics on timing, frequency, duration, processes to use?
• Creating more consistency regardless of location, experience level, personalities, or level of supervision?
• Driving higher levels of accountability?
• Sustaining momentum regardless of leadership changes?
• Improving both performance and development of leaders?  

Understanding, creating, and managing expectations is critical for sustained success.  Pushing leaders to achieve their best can lead to very positive results. But, unrealistic expectations can backfire and be dangerous.  Is it time for your organization to do a reality check of how it is managing leadership expectations?

One final thought.  It’s widely acknowledged that leadership has a significant impact on performance and competitiveness.  Research has found organizations with the highest quality leaders were 13 times more likely to outperform their competition in bottom-line metrics.  In addition, as much as 35% of the variability in employee discretionary performance is a result of managerial styles and behaviors. When it comes to managing leadership expectations, let’s be respectfully relentless and relentlessly respectful.  It will pay BIG dividends.

Interested in Leadership Expectation best practices (beliefs, plans, and execution)?  If so let’s connect at Brian@BrianGareauInc.com or at 309.634.9137 USA    

For over 56 million kids in America, it’s that time of year – back to school. It’s also a time filled with many emotions – excitement, anxiety, and even a little sadness.

Our school days are also a great laboratory to go back and ‘unwrap’ some foundational principles about performance management in the workplace. These principles are not complicated. But, they do take practice, discipline, and reinforcement to consistently do.

Consider in school:

• Performance management starts the first day. Easing into it later only creates confusion, frustration, and stress.     
• Classroom expectations are consistent with school expectations.
• Two assumptions are avoided - ‘kids are smart, they should already know the rules’ and ‘kids resent the time spent on reinforcing the rules’.  Kids like predictability (adults do too).
• Two sets of expectations are set – performance and behavior. 
• Performance and behavior expectations must be communicated clearly. A teacher who says, ‘speak quietly’ is more likely to get the desired result than saying ‘act appropriately’. 
• Everyone wants to know ‘how they will be graded’. This includes progress reports and final grades.
• Giving feedback is continuous. Creating new habits takes lots of reinforcement. Thank goodness for all those smiles, words of encouragement, little notes, smiley faces, and stickers.
• Measurement of performance must be meaningful, specific, and enforceable. For example, is it more important that black ink is used or that the hand writing is legible?     
• There are natural consequences for a student’s performance and behavior – both positive and negative. 
• Expectations can change depending on the teacher’s style. One teacher might be more project-based and another more focused on memorizing facts. So, it is critical students know the style.

Let’s take a quick quiz (assessment) from lessons learned going ‘back to school’.  Rate each either 1 (consistently done) or 2 (inconsistently done). 

In our organization, most leaders:

1. Start performance management in a timely manner by setting clear expectations of goals, objectives, and behaviors at the start of an employee’s performance cycle – not weeks or months later.
2. Follow the organization’s standards for key performance process steps (frequency, timeliness, quality of).
3. Avoid making assumptions that employees are ‘smart and already know that stuff’ about performance management – without thoroughly checking.
4. Discuss and document both what needs to be achieved (goals & objectives) and how it should be achieved (processes & values-based behaviors).
5. Seek clear, concise employee understanding of what they should continue doing, start doing, or stop doing.
6. Tell employees upfront ‘how performance will be graded’ and keep those rules throughout the performance year.
7. Give continuous feedback through timely, dedicated reinforcement and coaching.
8. Measure success with factors that are meaningful, specific, and enforceable. 
9. Allow the natural consequences of employees’ performance and behaviors to play out.
10. Provide clarity as to what style of documentation and measurement they prefer when the performance cycle begins.

Performance management is so much more than an end of year appraisal. It’s a critical job responsibility of each leader to help plan, develop, monitor, grade, and reward employees for their contributions – not their activities.

It has been said, ‘No one rises to low expectations.’ When we tolerate taking short-cuts, skipping steps, and allowing countless exceptions to the rules in performance management, we lower the bar on potential higher performance. How ironic! Maybe it’s time we go ‘back to school’ and stop making things so complicated.    

Have you ever heard or thought – “we can’t work in the same company.” Things just aren’t done consistently between work-groups, departments, shifts, locations, etc. – especially when it comes to people-related activities surrounding performance management. 

Leaders have different strengths, weaknesses, behaviors and personalities, so it is natural they approach performance management differently. But, all employees need to see some consistent application of both formal and informal rules for important performance activities including:

• Reinforcing good behavior and performance
• Enhancing average behavior and performance
• Correcting poor behavior and performance
• Disciplining unacceptable behavior and performance

A best practice we developed in my roles as Start-up and then Operations General Manager in a Fortune 50 corporation was a weekly ACT meeting.  Its’ focus was 100% on taking action to drive Accountability, Consistency, and Trust. This standing meeting was mandatory for anyone who had the privilege of supervising others – no exceptions. The format was a simple round-table discussion. 

First, each leader was asked to answer two sets of questions:

1. Who should we make sure to thank for their extra effort, performance, or values-based behavior this week?  Why?  (Then ALL leaders reinforced, over the next several days, by stopping - showing sincere appreciation – and reinforcing).
2. Who should we be aware of that is being corrected or disciplined?  Why?

And then, a final exercise was done where one specific policy or procedure in the employee handbook was reviewed by the on-site HR specialist.  This helped create a common interpretation and execution.

What we initially found, through healthy dialog and debate, were that leaders had lots of different tolerance levels, ignored, or made excuses for certain employee behavior and performance.  These inconsistencies created perceived favoritism, trust issues, and eroded relationships.  And, they all negatively affected performance. 

International businesswoman Margaret Heffernan once said, “for good ideas and true innovation, you need human interaction, conflict, argument, and debate.”  I would add that these same key elements are needed for creating a high performance organization with Accountability, Consistency, and Trust (ACT).

During my workshop last month at the Construction Education Institute, we discussed one of the biggest challenges in cultural change – aligning and coaching new required/desired behaviors of both employees and leaders.  Alignment is critical because it helps answer a basic question for each employee – here’s the impact you and your behavior have on the business. Bottom line – what you do and how you do it really does matter!

Common alignment issues include:

• Aligned behavior not routinely reinforced.  Many times this can lead to people believing it’s not important to continue to do a specific behavior. In addition, immediacy teaches the correlation between the positive reinforcement and new, desired behavior.  Research indicates to change a new behavior into a habit requires 17-21 times of reinforcement.  

• Inconsistent behavior not coached in a timely manner.  Consistency teaches predictability, creates trust and helps eliminate stress and confusion.  When behavior exceptions become the general rule - the ‘accepted or perceived way we do things here’ (culture) gets very fuzzy.  Fuzziness creates a loss of clarity.  Clarity is the first step in personal accountability.        
• Misaligned behavior tolerated too long. Procrastination or lack of pro-activity can set a precedent and provide for extended debates and arguments that it ‘was or use to be okay’.  Rationalizing misaligned behaviors by making excuses only allows the behavior and perceptions to continue. In addition, a leader’s overall effectiveness can be called into question by other direct reports, peers, and upper management when misaligned behavior is tolerated too long.
  
• Unacceptable behavior consumes too much time.  It absolutely takes time to properly address prolonged or blatant unacceptable behavior.  But it is important to remember, that in most cases, if a leader has already effectively explained the behavior  the employee is expected to improve, coached them on ways to improve, and allowed time for the employee to make improvement then most issues will not get to this stage.

Here are five key skills that can help you better align behavior: 

1. Dealing with differences of opinion 
2. Giving and accepting feedback
3. Creating mutual responsibility in accountability (between supervisor and employee)
4. Coaching for reinforcement, enhancement, correction, and discipline
5. Using positive reinforcement (research shows the ideal praise/criticism ratio for maximum performance is nearly 6 to 1)

Most leaders know these skills are important but struggle to properly allocate the necessary time to consistently execute them. Also, some leaders are misguided and think these skills are nice to have but not needed to be successful.  

Have your leaders mastered all five skills?  If not, then your culture has unnecessary waste, performance inefficiencies, and loses of human creativity & capability.    
       
Author Jim Collins once said, “Building a visionary company requires one percent vision and 99% alignment.”  Don’t make behavior alignment a last resort performance remedy.

If you would like to leverage some practical techniques in these five skills, then let’s connect! 

(Part 5 of a 5-part Series)

Here are more lessons learned from my eight years helping lead a global Fortune 50 corporation’s employee engagement journey. We leveraged internal best practices by:

1. Using 6 Sigma methodologies to determine statistical correlations.  6 Sigma was being used throughout the corporation to drive improvement. So, we used it too on our engagement journey. Examples included: a) Production supervisors who provided effective performance feedback; made employees feel appreciated; and solicited and valued employees' opinions and ideas had 50 percentage point or more differences in engagement than their counterparts; and b) Supervisors who were on a specific job longer, had lower supervisor to employee ratios, and used team leads had significantly higher engagement.

2. Holding monthly Engagement Exchanges.  These global conference calls had leaders whose division or facility had high engagement and/or significant year over year improve highlight tactical and practical actions they had taken. Each session was kicked off by a high-ranking executive and then passed on to middle and first line managers for more detailed discussions. Each session was recorded for future reference.

3. Hosting an annual Global Engagement Conference.  At first, everyone thought they were different due to the country they operated in, product or service they provided, function they administered, or makeup of staff. But, the conference helped people quickly discover they had much in common on this engagement journey. Networking exploded. New relationships and benchmarking started. And, the mix of people attending the conference shifted from primary HR professionals to HR and Operation professionals.  The agenda was usually 80-90% internal and 10-20% external expertise. We had over 300 people attend these global conferences.

4. Creating and celebrating the Chairman’s Engagement Award. This non-financial recognition and reinforcement was given to individual divisions and facilities for reaching engagement milestones (best-in-class, most improved, etc.). Awards (banners and trophies) were presented to winners, based on size of organization/facility and function they performed (service, marketing, operations, distribution). Extensive ‘internal press’ was given to winners through our corporate media channels. Note: at the time there were only two other Chairman’s awards – one for quality and one for safety.

5. Partnering in research studies with our survey provider.  One study compared some key performance metrics in our independent dealer branches. When we compared the engagement levels of the top 25% of branches in the study to the bottom 25% of branches, we found highly engaged branches: a) out-performed their counterparts by meeting or exceeding quarterly financial targets 40% more often; b) had 60% lower technician related rework; and c) 3 times fewer accidents. This information was then broadly shared.

How are you capturing and leveraging internal best practices to drive and sustain high levels of employee engagement?

I hope this five-part series has given you new ideas and food for thought to support your organization’s employee engagement journey. I am passionate about sharing my experience and consulting with my clients to help drive and sustain their culture and employee engagement. How can I help you? Let’s start a dialog to discuss your efforts and how I might be able to help. Please contact my Business Manager Michele Lucia at Michele@BrianGareauInc.com or 1.214.543.0844 to set up a call.  Always remember – Employee Engagement is a contact sport!     

(Part 4 of a 5-part Series)

Here are more lessons learned from my eight years helping lead a global Fortune 50 corporation’s employee engagement journey. These lessons focus on the formal measurement of employee engagement. We found engagement had to be measured:

1. As a key component of a larger process.  Research strongly indicates that measuring employee opinions ‘without’ any timely feedback on what was said or tangible actions taken, creates morale issues and increased ineffectiveness. In fact, internally we found more than 15 points higher engagement for employees who received timely feedback on survey results versus those who did not and more than 30 points higher engagement when employees saw managers take action on the survey results.

2. As a major contributor NOT sole contributor to performance improvement.  So, we conducted a global Employee Opinion Survey (EOS) that measured key strategic factors including: quality, safety, velocity, change, leadership, and engagement. This allowed us to analyze if statistical relationships and trends existed between key strategic success factors.  Each functional area (safety, quality, etc.) worked with internal and external resources to design high level survey questions that would drive high-level trends and follow-up dialog. Most functional areas asked less than five questions on our EOS.

3. By correlation versus causation.  We debated and researched this issue for several years. At the end, we concluded that when important business measurements (e.g. quality, safety, scrap, rework, attrition) were trending favorably so was engagement. We found the opposite was also true. We also stopped trying to determine if there was an absolute cause and effect with engagement. Instead we worked on creating engaging behaviors to complement our systems, processes, and philosophies of how to do business.

4. Both activities and outcomes.  Our activities were some of the key tactics that helped us achieve our desired outcomes. We tracked and monitored activities such as leaders: opening their survey results on-line; soliciting employees’ reaction and ideas to improve results; creating action plans; and completing action items. But we also measured the correlation between engagement and other key business metrics.  We found many favorable correlations between increased engagement and decreased attrition and absenteeism; improved quality and safety, increased implementation of LEAN principles; and a decline in union grievances.   

5. Consistently, so leaders who were trying to ‘game the measurement system’ had to be coached.  A few of our 7000+ leaders who received survey results tried to shift numbers in a desired direction – even though those numbers may not have reflected reality. Many tactics are mild and overt, but some are not.  Four common ‘gaming’ techniques we found were:

• selective timing of morale-boosting events (just before survey)
• withholding perceived negative news/actions until after the survey
• leading the witness, by asking questions in a manner that suggested the leader’s desired answer before taking the survey 
• trying to influence the survey rating scale. Some leaders told employees “a neutral score was bad” or “only the highest rating score counted”.

How does your employee engagement process ‘measure up’? 

Tomorrow - Lessons learned on Leveraging Success on An Employee Engagement Journey. 

(Part 3 of a 5-part Series)

Here are lessons learned on tackling limiting beliefs (from both leaders and employees) about employee engagement. They are based on my eight years of helping lead a global Fortune 50 corporation’s employee engagement journey. These beliefs created non-productive behaviors and waste. Each had to be pro-actively tackled.   

Here are some false limiting beliefs on engagement we had to address:  Engagement was only:

1. Measurable in a survey.  We taught leaders to stop, look, and listen for everyday things that could indicate if there was engagement or disengagement. For example, do team members consistently arrive right at shift start and leave as soon as the clock strikes quitting time? Are employees applying for jobs outside your team? Do employees physically attend meetings but mentally disconnect by not paying attention or participating?   

2. About money.  Both external research and our own internal research found that there were two major sets of factors for engagement. The first were rational – things like competitive wages and benefits, a safe place to work, tools, and basic training. These had to be done first.  But, then it was critical to move on to the emotional elements which centered on caring, credibility, and trust. Leaders showed these attributes by: soliciting employee ideas; coaching for performance; participating in career discussions; and showing genuine interest in building a professional, positive relationship.  Research by the Corporate Leadership Council summed it up best – “while competitive compensation and benefit packages are crucial to attract and retain talent, other drivers of engagement are far more effective in driving discretionary effort.”

3. Leaders’ responsibility.  We constantly reinforced the fact that there can’t be any spectators in an engaged, high performing organization.  Everyone (executives, leaders, and employees) had an important role to play.  To assist this principle, we encouraged divisions, facilities, and teams to:  a) clarity and set expectations on what engaged and disengaged behavior actually looked like; b) help employees understand what’s in it for them (WIIFT) when they were engaged and c) reinforce engaged behavior and pro-actively coach and address disengaged behaviors.

4. Adding more things to do.  Initially many leaders complained they were already too busy to add more ‘on their plate’.  We used a 1960’s Motown hit – ‘The Way You Do the Things You Do’ – to reinforce it was more about the ‘how’.  For example: Leaders needed to communicate with their employees. So, rebalancing and doing a little more listening and less talking was engaging.  It was also more engaging and productive to effectively delegate more and dump responsibilities less. Even a simple thing like walking from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’ in an office, factory, or distribution center was more engaging to look up, make eye contact, and acknowledge people than bury your head in a paper report or electronic screen.

What limiting beliefs about engagement are delaying your organization from maximizing performance?  What choices need to be re-evaluated?

Tomorrow - Lessons learned on Measurement on An Employee Engagement Journey